California

Yosemite Valley has
been a tourist attraction almost from the time the first white man
set foot there while tracking a band of Indians in 1851. By 1855,
there were organized tours into the valley and articles promoting
it in national magazines. Congress gave Yosemite to California as
a public park in 1860. At John Muir's urging, it was made a National
Park in 1890.